


excerpt from THE GREAT FIREWORKS SHOW OF DENERIM, 9:31 DRAGON.

by cartographicalspine



Series: The Hearthkeeper [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Elven Solidarity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 21:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: Tabris goes home, and Tamlen reconsiders what that really means to her.





	excerpt from THE GREAT FIREWORKS SHOW OF DENERIM, 9:31 DRAGON.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, it's that Tamlen. The dumb kid from the Dalish Origin. He's still kicking around, seeing as no one dies in this series.

The filth and grime made scaling the walls a tricky undertaking, but Tamlen had learned to climb mossy trees and sheer drops before he could run a straight line. He would not let what was left of his pride bear yet another defeat to the shemlen city.

Up and over, past a couple of collapsed...gables, Cousland had called them, and then eight steps to Tabris. He could have made six or seven, but lighter steps felt more natural up here. And he really didn’t want to have to ask their mages to dig another fistful of rusted roofing nails out of his foot. _Should have stopped after the first,_ Amell had said admiringly. _Oh, look at the angle on this one._

Ruined a good pair of boots, too, but he chalked it up to not having access to anything proper Dalish made since coming up from Redcliffe.

As a proud hunter of Clan Sabrae, he could say with full confidence that he had barely given a single whimper by the time Surana finished drawing any impurities from his blood and Amell healed him up. Though that might have had something to do with having Hanin to cling to the whole time, if he wanted to be honest. Which he wasn’t sure about.

The honesty part, of course. The rest? Well, he’d made his choice long ago, hadn’t he? What other reason could a Dalish elf like him ever find for stepping into a place like this?

Tabris looked up from her hazy, distant staring across the harbor, and the city’s lanterns lit her eyes up copper even this high above the streets. “Is that right, Dandelion?”

He took longer than he would have liked to find marginally safe seating next to her. “No, not really. Also, that nickname hasn’t stopped being horrifying, thanks.”

She cracked her first genuine smile—no guilt, fear, or regret—since the shem queen had shared those rumors with them, and he had to admit that it took years off her face, even splotchy and tear-stained and flushed as it was.

“The look on your face is always worth it,” Tabris said, turning her gaze back at the water. Then, in a smaller voice, she asked, “Did you really mean it? About your reasons for coming here?”

Tamlen followed her line of sight out to the docks of the city, at the black waters lined in silver and gold and the burning, sinking ship bobbing in the moonlight. He wondered how many of those ugly boats Tevinter had, and what a harbor full of them would look like aflame and broken at the spine. The Keeper would have pursed her lips at his thoughts; he’d always had more passion than sense, she would say. Considering what had happened to him…

Well, that was a conversation to look forward to.

“I always wondered why anyone would choose to live like this,” he said quietly. “Teased Little Fidget about it sometimes, with the way he loved to get away from the clan.”

Tabris furrowed her brow at the nickname; she knew him as Kiddo, not Fidget, and Mahariel over Ena’hanin when her thoughts were too heavy for laughter or peace. But she understood after a second and let him continue.

“I told him,” Tamlen said distantly, “that the shems...hey, do you remember what we talked about? Back in Haven?”

“We talked about a lot,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Mostly yelly and shouty, but yeah. Is it the owl pellets one again? Because I _will_ push you off this roof.”

He huffed impatiently. “No, not that one. The other yelly, shouty one.”

Neither of them needed to say the word that started that conversation.

“What about it?” she asked, like she wasn’t sure where he would take it this time.

“Besides how awkward it was to find out that we like reusing insults?” he grinned, ruffling his hair with fingers that didn’t tremble as often as they used to. “Or how proud we can be?”

She smirked thinly and nodded. “Or how stubborn.”

How alike. _Flat-ear._ The shemlen took everything, and then the elves gave them even what they didn’t have. They really did the shems’ work for them, didn’t they?

Tamlen bit his lip thoughtfully, imagining Hahren Paivel’s teasing remarks at the pensive silence that had taken over him, and a terrible little knot of homesickness coiled and twisted inside of him. _Next thing you know, I’ll be telling the old man that I missed him._

But he left the little knot alone for now and turned back to her, listening to her breathe and shiver in the night chill. “We were angry about it for a while, weren’t we?”

He waited for her to agree, or to nod, or to say anything at all. But she didn’t, so he finished his sad little speech that suddenly seemed way too small for how important this was. “I’m not angry about it anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t get it until now.”

Her voice cracked when she finally spoke. “You don’t have to…”

“I think I do.” Back in the apartments, Tamlen had seen Tabris bleed for her people, had seen the city elves endure and endure again, had bled for them himself, and had learned some really strange things about it all. He...didn’t want… “I was wrong. I don’t think you’re weak for wanting to come back. I don’t think you’re weak for not wanting to leave in the first place.”

He watched the orange glow on the horizon quietly, like a reflection of the fire in Tabris’ eyes. “I think you’re really strong, _lethallan.”_

Tabris buried her face in her arms, shoulders shaking. She stayed this way a long time, shuddering and fighting what he had made her feel, and he was sorry for that, too. There was a lot to be sorry about these days. She exhaled hard, a long, low sigh from deep in her chest, and when she raised her head, her eyes were fiercely bright again.

“Thank you,” she said, was smiling in that soft, real way again. They could hear Hanin and Surana approaching, but the urgency and secrecy was gone now.

Hanin’s eyes were a deep and fathomless green, watching them like grinning lantern wisps in the dark. “You can see everything from up here, can’t you? Were you watching this whole time?”

“You know, I don’t know about Tabris,” Tamlen teased, “but I just can’t keep my eyes off you.”

He sat down on Tabris’ other side and fluttered his eyelashes at Tamlen. “Oh, tell me more.”

“Boys,” Tabris said, less watery than before.

“It was generous of you to let them loose,” Surana said dryly as they watched the water begin to swallow the ship whole. “Even more generous was the cargo exchange and the favorable winds, though Leda and I might have been a little...enthusiastic with your instructions.”

"Storm of the century enthusiastic," Hanin whispered impishly, getting a rare glimpse of a Surana smile for his trouble.

Tabris laughed, though whether it was from the dark chill that went up their spines when the ship splintered in two, from the dark humor she and Surana shared, or even just the cold, none of them were ever able to tell. Not even Tabris. But she grinned wider and stronger than the span of what had happened in the Alienage and what they'd done in retaliation, and Tamlen thought it was enough.

“Thank you," she said again, and he squeezed her shoulder as the show died down and the harbor dimmed slowly, slowly, slowly. "Thank you."


End file.
